The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30103.
While solving, I was held up by not knowing some of the colognes for men, although fairly clued enough to be worked out. However, after completing the puzzle, I found perfumes popping up all over the grid, most of which I would take to be intentional. Apart from that, I thought this a fraction easier than the average Paul.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BEASTIE |
Wine-drinking insect, creepy-crawly (7)
|
| An envelope (-‘drinking’) of ASTI (‘wine’-) in BEE (‘insect’). Beastie seems to have some connection with perfumes, but I did not have time to pin down just what. | ||
| 5 | HASHISH |
Pot is as hot, thrice stirred (7)
|
| An anagram (‘stirred’) of ‘as is’ plus H H H (‘hot, thrice’). Black hashish is a perfume. | ||
| 10 | BABY |
Not Old Spice! (4)
|
| Emma Bunton, of the Spice Girls. Many perfumes are formulated for babies. | ||
| 11 | FINANCIERS |
Nuts cracked by trendy bankers (10)
|
| An envelope (‘cracked by’) of IN (‘trendy’) in FANCIERS (‘nuts’). | ||
| 12 | COCOON |
Wrap up, wearing 14? (6)
|
| COCO ON; a reference to Coco Chanel, the fshion designer perhaps best remembered for the FRAGRANCE (’14’) Chanel No. 5 (but not Opium, which came from another fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent. Cocoon is a line of perfumes. | ||
| 13 | PENDANTS |
Underwear, inside which butt – and dangly things (8)
|
| An envelope (inside which’) of END (‘butt’) in PANTS (‘underwear’). | ||
| 14 | FRAGRANCE |
Opium, say, kid smuggled into country (9)
|
| An envelope (‘smuggled into’) of RAG (‘kid’ in the sense of tease) in FRANCE (‘country’). | ||
| 16 | DAISY |
Flower remains bathed in hours of sunlight (5)
|
| An envelope (‘bathed in’) of IS (‘remains’) in DAY (‘hours of sunlight’). Marc Jacobs markets a line of perfumes under the name Daisy. | ||
| 17 | ASTIR |
Stuck in Belfast, Irishman busy (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘stuck in’) in ‘BelfAST IRishman’. | ||
| 19 | SOUTH-EAST |
Going west, has set out – a different way? (5-4)
|
| An anagram (‘going west’) of ‘has set out’. | ||
| 23 | CASANOVA |
Stellenbosch country certainly not embraced by wine lover (8)
|
| An envelope (’embraced by’) of SA (South Africa, ‘Stellenbosch country’) plus NO (‘certainly not’) in CAVA (‘wine’). Casanova is also a perfume. | ||
| 24 | NOUGAT |
Sweet wrappers from Ouagadougou and Giza filling empty net (6)
|
| An envelope (‘filling’) of O U G A (‘wrappers frm OuagadougoU and GizA‘) in NT (’empty NeT‘). | ||
| 26, 29 | INTIMATELY BECKHAM |
14 to spray around tackle, he-man? I’m not posh, buy it! (10,7)
|
| An anagram (‘to spray around’) of ‘tackle he-man I’m b[u]y it’ minus the U (‘not posh’). | ||
| 27, 8 | BLUE STRATOS |
14, also Brut, set to be splashed all over (4,7)
|
| An anagram (‘to be splashed all over’) of ‘also Brut set’. | ||
| 28 | ANAGRAM |
As ‘Curious’, Britney Spears, is for presbyterians? (7)
|
| And indeed it is! A curious anagram indeed; also, for the theme, ‘Curious’ is a perfume marketed under the name of Britmey Spears. | ||
| 29 |
See 26
|
|
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | ENAMOUR |
Charm in a second cracking magical character up (7)
|
| An envelope (‘cracking’) of A MO (‘a second’) in ENUR, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of RUNE (‘magical character’). | ||
| 3 | SAY-SO |
Express then: green light (3-2)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. | ||
| 4 | INFANTA |
Princess seemingly enjoying orange bubble bath? (7)
|
| IN FANTA:a play on the orange-flavoured soft drink. | ||
| 6 | AWNING |
Canopy breaking, roof shearing off (6)
|
| A subtraction: [d]AWNING (‘breaking’) minus its first letter (‘roof shearing off’). | ||
| 7 | HAI KARATE |
Short poem on a rank 14 (3,6)
|
| A charade of HAIK[u] (‘poem’) even shorter by the letter U (‘short’); plus ‘a’ plus RATE (‘rank’, verb). | ||
| 8 |
See 27 Across
|
|
| 9 | INSPECTORATES |
Test teams heading for Pakistan, cricket, say, talks about that (13)
|
| An envelope (‘about that’) of P (‘heading for Pakistan’) in INSECT (‘cricket, say’) plus ORATES (‘talks’). | ||
| 15 | GRIMACING |
Dark art of server, visibly in pain (9)
|
| A charade of GRIM (‘dark’) plus ACING (‘art of server’, tennis). | ||
| 18 | SHANNON |
Pipe down, soon crossing new river (7)
|
| An envelope (‘crossing’) of N (‘new’) in SH (‘pipe down’) plus ANON (‘soon’). | ||
| 20 | TINTYPE |
Old still, preserve order (7)
|
| A charade of TIN (‘preserve’) plus TYPE (‘order’). In the definition, ‘still’ is a photograph. | ||
| 21 | SPATULA |
Kitchen implement: it has inspired me to gather up last bit of fondant! (7)
|
| A double envelope (‘has inspired’ and ‘to gather up’) of T (‘last bit of fondanT‘) in PAUL (‘me’) in SA (sex appeal, ‘it’). | ||
| 22 | SONATA |
Piece noted through observations on a tangent (6)
|
| A hidden answer (‘through’) in ‘observationS ON A TAngent’. | ||
| 25 | UZBEK |
Of Asian citizens, fifth of which live in European country (5)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of Z (‘citiZens, fifth of which’) plus BE (‘live’) in UK (‘European country’). |
Bit of a chore, tbh. 14ac itself wasn’t a bother. Thanks to the late mrs ginf, I knew Opium (along with Ysatis, Joy and Coco’s No 5), but none of the others, which had to be wrangled via crossers and a bit alphacheck help. Thanks, Paul, an interesting choice of theme but not a lot of fun, and thanks PeterO.
A Friday afternoon tussle (not unaided). A lot of laughs and very clever. Thought the theme might be drugs. But HASHISH is another ‘parfum’. I’m amazed and envious at how often Paul churns these top-shelf grids out. Still don’t understand ANAGRAM and I need a rest now. Thanks.
I am a regular Paul solver but this was TERRIBLE. So unnecessary convoluted. On solving pretty much every clue I had to double take with a “really?!”. The surface for 26/29n is one of the worst I’ve seen for a long time.
Like ginf@1 found it a bit of a grind. Didn’t know the majority of the perfumes.
No clue particularly stood out, in either direction, except perhaps 26/29 as noted above.
PeterO, I parsed 10a as “Not old=BABY”, then spice as you did.
Tx
Not a chore, or indeed a grind for me. That said, most of the male fragrances were readily available in my teenage years. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and it provoked a few giggles, particularly for INFANTA and PENDANTS. Nice way to start off a Friday, thanks Paul and PeterO.
Wouldn’t have figured this out in a month of Sundays
Paul, as always, very clever. Re 28/29, Posh (as opposed to Baby) spice is, of course, Mrs. Beckham!
Thanks to Paul an PeterO.
DNF for me as I had just HAI for ‘short poem’ and that left me short of the ‘k’ for the next part of the clue. No chance of me knowing the actual perfume name.
Rats@3 I think you’re a little harsh on 26/29. Granted it was tough to isolate the anagrist and then gruesome trying to cold solve but actually the wordplay in itself is quite funny. I sort of imagined a conversation between a couple in a store. Ok it’s a bit ridiculous but this is Paul. Thumbs up from me.
Well I thought this was hard but entertaining and so clever. I didn’t know all the perfumes but fun to work them out and look them up. Many thanks Paul and PeterO for the excellent blog.
As someone who nearly sprints when running the gauntlet of the fragrance section in airports, I was well off the scent with this. Did chuckle at 4d but otherwise too many clunky and at times nonsensical surfaces.
Thanks to S&B
Worth a shot but as usual I simply cannot get onto Paul’s wavelength at all. 28a was my favourite, even without picking up that it was part of the theme.
Some of these perfumes were discontinued before I was born. I wonder if we’ll get as many other people saying the theme is too obscure as we did for the Taylor Swift-themed puzzle a few months ago.
Tough and a slightly niche theme, but worth the effort. The cheeky (if slightly icky) insight into Posh and Becks’ “intimate” life at 26 is almost an &lit.
Top ticks for INFANTA, ANAGRAM & HAI KARATE which was my entry to the theme and a fragrance which would almost certainly induce GRIMACING if any CASANOVA were to wear it
I knew all the fragrances except INTIMATELY BECKHAM (yuk) so that one is officially obscure 🙂
Cliche klaxon for SA/IT
Cheers P&P
Though flummoxed initially I battled through this, revealing the last four answers when I’d had enough. I rather enjoyed it, particularly BABY and the BECKHAM perfume one which I thought was very funny. HASHISH and NOUGAT were neat and I dredged up HAI KARATE from somewhere. I was nowhere near parsing it all but never mind. Clever to include so many perfumes.
Excellent. INTIMATELY BECKHAM surely COTD? Honourable mentions too for INFANTA, ANAGRAM and BLUE STRATOS. Thanks to both.
Unusually for me, I really enjoyed this Paul; I have been known to abandon his puzzles in the past.
22 and 28 seemed familiar from recent other puzzles.
sofamore@2 Britney Spears is an ANAGRAM (curious) of Presbyterians (originally perpetrated I think by the great Araucaria)
Normally I’m a great fan of Paul’s puzzles, but I’m afraid not of this particular one. Only had limited knowledge or interest in the theme, and had to resort to full use of electronic assistance to get through it, so it certainly doesn’t count as a clean solve. Oh well, hopefully his next one will be more to my taste.
Absolutely brilliant and what a trip down memory lane; was desperately looking for Denim. The mini-Spice Girls theme was also amusing. Pleased to see an actual flower with DAISY and I’ve seen the ANAGRAM before but it’s worth being reminded of. ASTIR was foi and of course my favourite, being a Belfast boy.
Ta Paul & PeterO.
Plenty of mischief to enjoy, but zero knowledge of fragrances meant I could only solve about half the clues. Thanks to PeterO, and to urban otterspotter #17 for explaining the anagram which had escaped me entirely.
Can always find a few laughs with Paul!
Finished yesterday but this was absolutely impossible.
Thanks both.
Thanks #17. Appreciate that and understand it now. Obvious
COCO is a Chanel perfume so I think COCO ON is a reference is to the fragrance rather than the designer?
After a few were entered, a word search gave me INTIMATELY BECKHAM. I threw it away at that point.
A good laugh at the surface for 13a, but DNF after staring at T N Y E for 10 minutes. Thought the theme took away from the fun if anything.
Hugely irritated to find that even in crosswordland it’s impossible to escape from the tattooed, attention-seeking buffoon.
PeterO’s comment on 10ac, BABY, is curious: ‘Many perfumes are formulated for babies.’ I hesitate to suggest it, bu,t has he missed the point that Old Spice is another FRAGRANCE for blokes (I use the word advisably)? Incidentally, AlanC @19, while I take your point about memory lane, BLUE STRATOS and HAI KARATE are still made, although not the subject of the high-profile advertising that they enjoyed i/n the 1970s.
Balfour @26: you’re absolutely right about BABY. My father reeked of Old Spice every day 🤣
Another superb offering from Paul.
I too wonder how he concocts such intricate and original clues.
urbanotterspotter @17 re the anagram: I’d always thought it was Araucaria but Alan Connor attributed it to Rufus here:
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/shortcuts/2012/feb/21/guardian-crossword-setter-rufus-80
I did a little more digging and found this clincher from Rufus himself (comment 20) from July 2009!:
https://fifteensquared.net/2009/07/27/guardian-24762-rufus/
IN FANTA made me laugh, as did the “dangly things”, but I had to work out INTIMATELY from its crossers and then search for the rest of the stuff, as I did for BLUE STRATOS: this is deep in my zone of General Ignorance, and I don’t think I’d ever have accurately identified the anagram fodder. I did remember HAI KARATE.
Speaking of which, those anagram-style clues for ANAGRAM are having a bit of a vogue lately, aren’t they – I actually spotted this one.
I liked BEASTIE (this puzzle features both the Crossword Wines asti and cava), HASHISH and BABY.
Got most of the non-thematic answers, but after revealing the theme, I just couldn’t be bothered continuing. I can imagine few things more tedious than trying to tease out a bunch of trade names for products I’ve never heard of and have little interest in.
I did like UZBEK.
A thousand thanks for the blog, PeterO: a lot of these were semi-parsed guesses – and untangling UZBEK was way beyond me.
My heart sank when I twigged 14A, for so many scents have such silly and meaningless names, and I feared the crossers would be of no help.
So this is me gobsmacked that several had clearly lodged in some dim and dusty corner of my memory.
Well, except for that Beckham one (and if it is indeed called that, ewwww!) but then, vast hordes of Slebs have foisted “their” fragrance upon the masses and I figured that Oofy P’s t.a.s.b. and his missus probably have a slew of them…
BEASTIE made me grin.
HAI KARATE reminded me of my favourite haiku, by John Hegley:
Writing a poem,
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic
Eileen @29, very interesting. I certainly remember the first appearance of the Britney Spears / Presbyterians anagram in the Guardian. It was a Saturday prize crossword, well over 20 years ago, and it was the key clue in a Britney Spears theme. On the Monday the paper published a letter in appreciation of it, completely giving the game away before the deadline for entries! I complained to the Readers’ Editor and got an apology.
I thought Paul was the setter on that occasion and Rufus’s comment in your second link seems to confirm it.
poc @31: it did amuse me to see you got a green avatar. Belfast child, no? Mine should have been orange 🤣
Ooffyprosser@25…when I was much younger the tattoos were transfers and washed off in the rain. Or in the bath. Not so these days.
Two toughies in a row for me this week, I’m afraid. Only managed about half a dozen before I decided to concentrate on other matters…
Eileen@29. Thanks for the links, a homophone I was expecting to see here.
When I see ‘kid’ I inevitably think of ‘rag’, so eventually the key answer was revealed. I seemed to know most of the FRAGRANCES somehow. I liked the thrice-stirred HASHISH (no doubt others tried various other ANAGRAMs here), the Paulian PENDANTS surface, CASANOVA wine lover, the cricket INSPECTORATES, the even more Paulian SPATULA, and the well-hidden SONATA.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
I feel like in the year 2026, IT=SA is well overdue for retirement.
Lots of imaginative constructions, as usual, plus irritating randomly placed split solutions and cross references, as we expect from Paul. I got the keyword from HAI KARATE – H_I couldn’t have been anything else. I managed to recall all of the ‘fragrances’, though I eschew all of these more modern ones containing far too much 7-methyl-2,4-dihydro-3H-1,5-benzodioxepin-3-one 🙂
I die enjoy PENDANTS, GRIMACING and FRAGRANCE itself.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
I have a two year streak of completing but my heart sinks every time this setter appears. A joyless, annoying struggle. I’m sure he has more fun setting than we get solving.
Another fine example of why I no longer attempt to solve Paul’s crosswords.
I’m a single man, heterosexual with no partner. I have zero interest or knowledge of perfumes. I use one eau de Cologne for men.
Ed@41…for about three years as a young man I had a German girlfriend from Koln/Cologne. Though her preferred choice of perfume was suggested by another city, however. Rive Gauche…sorry, couldn’t help myself…
[Sorry – couldn’t resist rewriting 13a: Many fifteen squared members welcome new swingers]
I’m surprised, this being Paul, he didn’t include the actor Alan Cumming’s perfume, simply called
‘Cumming’
Thanks both!
We enjoyed this. Rats@3 is right about the ugly surface of 26/29. It would be (slightly) improved I think if it read ’he-man tackle’ rather than ‘tackle he-man’
Not a crossword we could have mabaged without a bit of googling.
Well I am going to give myself a pat on the back for that. My wife buys all my fragrances and don’t even have the foggiest which one I am spraying at the moment.
Fingers crossed for HAI KARATE and BLUE STRATOS but with the exception of INTIMATELY BECKHAM (which I let stew in my brain for a few hours before coming back) it was relatively quick Paul solve.
Liked BEASTIE and BABY (once the penny dropped).
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Different strokes … I thought this was fiendish, one of the hardest ever tussles with Paul and NHO the three two-word ‘fragrance’ solutions.
But thanks to him, and to PeterO for the blog, especially for unravelling UZBEK.
Thanks for the blog , a lot of reminders of terrible 1970s adverts , like AlanC @19 I was waiting for Denim and my Dad still uses Old Spice but he calls it aftershave . They had a good advert with the waves and O Fortuna , perhaps the Hai Karate advert the most offensive there has ever been .
The sort of crossword that people like if they like this sort of thing .
Roz@48: agree with you about Hai Karate. In addition, to this day I do not understand why it is a name for a fragrance. Misbegotten all around.
Anyway… I am usually wary of Paul, and after finding BLUE STRATOS and then twigging to the theme, seriously considered throwing in the towel, the aforementioned Hai Karate being the only other fragrant answer I knew. A handful of the non-theme answers were enjoyable, but overall this was a reversion to my usual Pauline experience.
No joy in this. I gave up
Balfour @26
I thought that Old Spice as a fragrance was too well known to be worth commenting on it. Perhaps I was wrong. The comment about baby perfumes was added post solve, when I started to google “x perfume”, where x is one of the answers (“anagram perfume” just directed me to various anagram generating sites, which would not give much joy for perfume).
Rats @3
I wonder if you did not understand the surface of 26,29A INTIMATELY BECKHAM, perhaps being unaware of the meaning of ‘tackle’ as the male genitals.
A couple of things that went nowhere, I wonder if anyone else tried:
UZBEK is mostly BEKZ which sounds lke Becks, in the mini-theme.
The letters of “up last” plus an A from “fondant” give you SPATULA.
Oh well.
I usually have no problem with Paul crosswords, and this was easier than most, but I didn’t know the Beckham fragrance. Had to Google if he’d had one released in his name (‘Posh’ and ‘tackle giving a hint towards him).
I will just have to settle for 42 in base 10 today .
Roz @54
Isn’t 42 in base 10 . . . . . 42?
Roz#54 base 13?
42 is 9×6 in base 13 .
Did you know Yul Brynner did not use perfume or aftershave? Yes, Yul never wore cologne.
Roz#57 and 15×3 and 21×2
Don’t know if it’s just because Paul’s name is on the puzzle, but my brain just refused to engage with most of these, so I ended up revealing 75%. That makes 3 days in a row of total failure.
Must admit that highly themed puzzles like this leave me cold. Yes. very clever, but too overtly so for my tastes.
It’s a weird thing that of late I’ve not solved a weekday puzzle for ages yet done the last 4 Prize ones. This site has helped amazingly. Thanks all. If I was remotely proficient I’d link the Sparks song Perfume. It mentions 30 perfumes, but only Opium appears in this crossword. I also love the pythonic absurdity of having to resort to Ouagadougou to release OU into the grid. I rarely write in as by the time I’ve semi-solved the world has moved on but I love this site.
I liked DAISY. a handful of ok clues like GRIMACING and SHANNON, but overall, not enjoyable and spoiled by the following i perceived as inaccuracies:
COCO ON could be ‘fragrance applied?’, but ‘wearing fragrance?’ would have to be ‘having coco on’. also surely everyone says Chanel…
ANAGRAM needs to be clued in two different ways, rather than an example of an anagram and an example of an anagram indicator ‘Curious’.
why ‘enjoying’ for princess INFANTA?
how does ‘of Asian’ mean UZBEK?
Should have been a bit of a blast down memory lane but the NHO 26/29 is I presume a lot more modern compared to the other 14s. Normally I like Paul’s crosswords but this was a bit of a struggle.
26/29 has been adopted by the NHS , apparently just saying the words is the most powerful emetic they have .
Zovietfrance@61 , I have read on here that you can’t check the answers on a Saturday so maybe a message about stubbornness .
Zovietfrance@61: Here ’tis
Sparks song Perfume
In 26/29… don’t understand why ‘not posh’ means to remove the letter ‘u’ from ‘buy’???
Paul @66 an old crossword staple , U and non-U , posh and common .
1950s , Alan Ross , but Nancy Mitford made it popular , just a touch out of date .
Know little about perfumes, but such a nice puzzle!
I’m with @38 LobsterDarts. High time SA = IT was retired.
Roz @67 – care to elaborate? Still not getting it.
Not That Paul@70
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English
Taffy @71. Thanks – interesting article. Can’t believe I wasn’t au-fait with terminology from 1950s socio-linguistics and its application to crossword deletions!
As an aside – the examples in the Wiki are interesting in how obsolete many of them are… perhaps like the concept itself. I’d estimate my own usage to be roughly 50:50
Like Oofyprosser @25 I stared at the crossers for TINTYPE but just couldn’t crack it. I liked INFANTA, HAI KARATE and a few others. A rare DNF, but not a sulk or a whine (not rare today).
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
My sister says Paul should be boiled in oil; far too good for him !
She obviously doesn’t like you much.
Roz@64 🤣🤣
Good one. Good perfume rubric. And a clever distraction on 10a.
We’d have liked some more perfume clues, but perhaps some of the answers were perfumes we’ve never heard of. ‘Spatula: splash it on!’
But once we got BLUE STRATOS, we looked for HAI KARATE, and found it: LOL!!!
25d is straightforward: fifth of citiZens (Z), live (BE), in European country (UK) as container.
We enjoyed it much more than yesterday’s.
I parsed 3D as Express = “say”, then = “so”. I only knew Blue Stratos because it’s used in the title of a novel based on the “Life on Mars” series. Otherwise I’m in the “tough but fair” camp.
Very clever, Paul! I gather SONATA , NOUGAT and even SHANNON are all fragrances or companies that manufacture them. How many more have I missed?
Well it was a satisfying solve in the end, but the obscurity of the theme – tacky mass-market aftershaves, some of which were discontinued decades ago – turned this crossword into something more like a bad Araucaria than a top-notch Paul. If that makes sense.
Well I thought this was an outstanding puzzle — one of my favourites in a long time. Worth the price of admission was 4d INFANTA, a genuine laugh-out-loud funny clue, such that my reaction startled Mrs Mig. Savoured the pleasure of finally cracking my first FRAGRANCE, 27/8 BLUE STRATOS, followed closely by 7d HAI KARATE (do they still make that stuff?), which I remembered from childhood TV ads, which led to 14a, and I was up and running. I couldn’t find solutions to 12a COCOON or 20d TINTYPE though, so dnf. Cracking puzzle nonetheless
Many other delights along the way, too many to mention all of them. I’ll just take the opportunity to highlight 21 SPATULA for its Matryoshka wordplay, after learning the term from Roz only two days ago. Also 10a BABY (the cologne “Old Spice” providing coverage for the capitals — brilliant!), and many others
22d SONATA again. The coincidences (or are they?) keep piling up
Sorry, no time to read all the comments. Maybe more later…
Thanks both
A small quibble: although “pot” and HASHISH are both forms of cannabis, IME they’re distinct.
I found this very slow going, having NHO several of the 14s. (For some reason I remembered HAI KARATE—it must have been the ads.) But I eventually managed to parse enough of them to make web-searches mostly confirmatory.
Odysseus @82 , in the UK “pot” simply a slang term for any form of cannabis and very out of date so the clue is fine . Pot , dope , weed , blow etc all had their turn .
Top drawer stuff, thanks Paul as usual.
The only ad I remember is the Henry Cooper one. Thank goodness, it seems.
INFANTA really was a gas.
Cheers all.
AlanC@34: Indeed (from the Glen Road), though the avatar is apparently random. Call it serendipity.
Very surprised by some of the negativity. I thought this one of Paul’s more entertaining and accessible offerings of late.
You don’t use the fragrances? And some of them no longer on sale? Oh dear – yet we’re all expected to know music and literature from long-ago.
Oh, but that’s “culture”, so completely different….
This was the most complete I’ve ever got with a Paul set puzzle.. couldn’t get 29d – NHO, but a few answered but not fully parsed. Once I got the 80s perfume ads in my head the old ones came through.
For an obscure fact: the lyric “Presbyterians is an anagram of Britney Spears” appears in the 2006 song “If I ever see Mark Benson” which was on Jane Siberry’s ep Tootie
Great puzzle!
Le Petomane @ 58 – not bad!
bodycheetah@43 – brilliant!
Alistair @ 40. Well, Paul’s a lucky man if he derives anything like as much fun from setting them as I do solving them!
Thanks for the long forgotten fact Andrew @ 87.
The farting maniac @ 58, thanks again. I can’t quite remember how this was woven into a Liverpool FC gag, however.